Here I am. Christmas day (well the end of Christmas day), and I couldn't help but notice that I was/am not excited for anything about the holidays. As I saw my little cousin's smiling faces opening a ton of presents, enjoying the thrill and surprise of Christmas. And then I glanced down at all the cards I received with nothing but money. Yeah, money is great! We can all use a little more of it from time to time (so far I received about 300 dollars, win!), but the holiday spirit just isn't there if you're not unwrapping a gift of any size with no idea what is under the paper.

I miss it a lot.

And I realized the Christmas "cheer" has declined considerablly each year as I get older. I saw it coming, I really did, but I didn't realize it was going to be this disheartening. I remember waking up at 5 AM on Christmas morning as a young kid to see what "Santa" had brought me this year and just getting this dorky-ass grin across my face as I saw the plethora of presents under our colorful plasitc tree.

This year we opened presents on Christmas Eve night for the first time ever, and I had three gifts (excluding the Underoath/Thursday VIP package my mother bought me as an early gift). Two movies and an external hard-drive. Three things that I wanted, yes. But pretty unexciting things to say the least. The next day I celebrated with my family and only got the cash that I had mentioned earlier. I know I shouldn't be bitter because I really didn't ask for anything, but I'm just saying I miss the surprise and delight of the holidays that I so constantly urged for as a child.